Re(Calibrator) Phase9 Part2

After having a session on cold glass  shaping, I went to London Glass Blowing Workshop/Gallery of Peter Layton. http://www.londonglassblowing.co.uk/
There, I had a productive discussion with the glass artists about my project and the techniques that could have been  applied to produce the desired shapes. They kindly  suggested for me to stay in the workshop and find out  how the process flows.

London Glass Blowing workshop/gallery

London Glass Blowing gallery pieces

The glass blowing technique is very traditional and it has not changed much since it has been first discovered in about 50 BC. It has been since then a common practice to use long metal sticks to manipulate the heated glass.

Hot glass dipped in a glass frit

A certain amount of glass is applied on  the end of the metal stick, afterwards, gradually, more  glass powder, broken glass and other variety of matter is added, depending on the desired outcome.

Initial forming of the hot glass

Further shaping with tools

The hot glass is then  shaped and manipulated, by constantly  adding  heat, blowing and forming, while rotating non-stop to avoid the deformation of the piece due to gravity. The water is used throughout for lubrication and cooling.

Heating the glass in the furnace

Once the shape is achieved, a small foot is added, to  put the piece in the kiln, this is removed later on. The heated piece is then put in a kiln for a certain period, depending on the size.This method is called annealing. In the kiln, the object is cooled gradually and this is done to prevent the glass from cracking. When the glass is heated, much stress and  tension is beeing built into  it,  and if it is cooled too quickly,  then the  piece might  break or even  explode.  The heated glass is of course bright red/orange colour and the true colors maybe observed only after it has cooled down.

Glass annealing

After reflecting upon this process, I think  there is a great potential to explore this technique, however I will hesitate for one reason- its very unpredictable nature and its consequent outcome is always an approximation. What interests me more, is the body movement and the gestures while making the glass.

This stimulated to have a look at an existing research in the field of capturing the gestures or human movement and software link.
Of course the graphic tablet which I used to produce the geometry in Z-Brush is an example of this, where the movement of ones hand is registered and further enhanced by the output software.

Touch sensitive graphic tablet

There is a 3 dimensional equivalent of the graphic tablet, it is called interactive Haptic device with 3D virtual brushes/tools. This tool is suppose to recreate the unique touch and feel of the creative process of sculpting, carving, painting etc.

3D modelling with Haptic brush

In essence, the Haptic system was designed to eliminate the need of fabricating a prototype model, it is used with holographic screen (ideally) where the artist can not only see, but also touch the object with the set of tools. It is similar to remote surgery techniques, the same sensation of having something sold in front to work with. When used with a certain material, the stock of the material creates a natural resistance as one would expect from a real material, meaning you can not just push your brush inside it as if it was a hollow weightless mass. This is of course the case with any other 3D modelling software; the virtual 3D objects are weightless and do not show resistance when penetrated with the mouse. Thus with Haptic brush, one can feel as a real artist working with a real material. Even thought this sounds really fascinating, I found the technique to be in its rudimentary stage as I decided to carve my geometry with the use of this system. I got really tired after half an hour, because the clay material I have chosen, behaves as something really sold and it takes a lot of strength to carve into it. My hand simply got tired after trying to push and cut through the material and I did not dare trying something even harder like wood or metal. 
Next I came across Tavs Jorgensen, a Danish born artist and a visiting lecturer at RCA,who is doing an interesting research related to gesture and glass making. Jorgensen came up  with a data glove " the movement data recorded by the data-glove is not used for special effects but imported into a CAD program where it forms the basis for 'solid' shapes that can be realized by a computer controlled milling machine." http://www.autonomatic.org.uk/team/tj/conducting-form.html#/

Data Glove by T. Jorgensen

However, this is not the first concept of the data glove, the idea has been around for few decades, under the names wired glove, power glove, etc.

Data Glove by VPL Research

Above is the data glove by VPL Research designed in 1970s, which conveys the fingers position to the computer via its magnetically coupled 3D tracker mounted on it. (page 303, Mazes for the Mind : Computers and the unexpected ). This concept has taken a very curious turn in the hands of the performing artist Stelarc, who declared that "technology has greatly expanded our senses and made our natural abilities obsolete" (http://www.nextnature.net/2012/03/is-the-human-body-redundant/) 

Stelarc Third Hand

In this image, Stelarc is using an artificial hand attached to his body that is activated by EMG muscle signals. He uses equipment designed for medical purposes, to monitor his physiological factors like brain activity, blood pressure etc, to create a visual performance using gesture and internal control. (http://stelarc.org/?catID=20265)

Drawing with a robotic hand

The hand is quite sophisticated with its pinch release , 270 wrist rotation and a tactile feedback system that creates a sense of touch. It is designed to add to the man's capabilities.

This thinking can enhance our capabilities in everyday tasks if applied skilfully and in good time. Can a third hand be used to support the labour-intensive process of glass blowing? or even touching the hot glass? 

Re(Calibrator) Phase9

In pursue of the right glass technique for the execution of the final design, I paid a visit to various cold glass workshops.

Cold glass workshop

The common cold glass technique is  fairly straight forward; the 3D shape is formed by  layering  flat glass sheets.

Glass sculture by Peter Newsome 

This method is like the manual equivalent of Rapid Prototyping, only instead of powder, the pre-cut glass pieces are placed and glued to form the 3D object. In fact, the material layering technique is quite often employed by architects and planners in their scale models.

London Residential Density model by R. Burdett (LSE)

Each layer  is designed and developed individually. First a decision is made about the thickness of the  glass, since this inevitably  creates  steps,  then each layer is cut, sanded and cleaned with solvent. Afterwards the pieces are glued together with UV glue, sometimes a heat gun is used to get rid of air bubbles. This method  provides a great ability to control the process,which is something that  is perhaps less possible with hot glass. However this technique  is immensely time consuming  and if I decide to go with the cold forming technique, then would look into potentially digitalizing some of  the manual part of the process.
Meanwhile, here  are the basics of this method.

The common way of cutting glass is with  the use of  a glass cutter; the area is lubricated with oils before the cut, to protect  the blade.

"cutting the glass" with a knife

Even though the process is called glass cutting, we dont actually cut the  glass, but scratch and brake it.  (page33, The Glass Artist's Studio Handbook, Cecilia Cohen, 2011).
An automatic glass saws are  also available, there is a constant water lubrication going on with  this cutting process,to protect  the glass from overheating and breaking.

The automatic glass cutter

The water lubrication process applies to a big bench saw too,  when sanding the corners of the piece.

Glass polishing

In glass grinders and drills, normally the heads are made of diamond.

The diamond heads

After these workshops, I was tempted to simulate the cold glass making process for the geometry I am intending to fabricate and to see what it will look like if I was to go with this method.
For this purposes, I First dissected a portion of the geometry and separated it from the rest. 

Selecting a piece of geometry

Afterwards I measured and spaced the sheets of glass that I will be needing for the cutting.

The glass layers created in 3Ds Max

 Then I cut into each layer of glass, assuming that I will be doing the same with the real glass and then reassembled them together.

Layers of glass with different shapes

The results are looking like these.

The projected view of the layered glass object

This is of course not the real representation of the sculpture generated with cold technique, as here I could not achieve the "stepped" effect, but this gives a hint on what this may look like.

Different colour glass with various opacities

Since the geometry that I am trying to achieve is very flowing and organic, this technique seems to contradict to the fluidity of the shape, with its orthodox linearity. I feel that the cold glass layering method, although relatively easy to achieve, perhaps is not right for this particular shape. There are other disadvantages too ; its does not allow for an interior space as the glass is filled through the whole volume of the shape, thus making it extremely heavy and "inhabitable". There is of course a great potential in this technique, but I believe this needs to be combined with another method to achieve more complete and richer structure.